This will help "defuse the issue of the supposed hiatus in global warming," which Trenberth says really isn't a hiatus at all....Will the report have any influence on U.S. policy as it relates to climate change? "Not really," Trenberth predicts. He adds that those who matter in the administration are well informed, but that those in Congress who don't believe in global warming won't budge.

Next year the EPA will propose a rule to impose vast new anticarbon costs on existing plants in a bid to eliminate what remains of coal power. The target after that will be natural gas, and anything else that emits the demon carbon.